Pessimism In The Metamorphosis

Waking up as a cockroach would be an unusual and frightening circumstance for most people. For Gregor Samsa, it was more of an inconvenience than something to be afraid of. Gregor Samsa is the protagonist of “The Metamorphosis”, which is a short story written by Franz Kafka, about a man who lived a bleak and depressing life. Franz Kafka was born in Prague, Czech Republic in 1883 to Jewish parents. In life, Kafka himself was depressed and he felt like he didn’t fit in. He was also a schizophrenic which may explain why he made his character wake up one morning as a giant cockroach. He was one of the most prominent creators of the Realism, and more specifically magic realism. Realism focused on pessimism and generally concentrated on the negative

Following his family’s discovery of his new transformation, they begin a slow and harsh isolation from him. In “The Metamorphosis” Kafka uses the metaphor of Gregor’s transformation, as well as the new difficulties he faces following his transformation, into a cockroach to symbolize his own depression and how he felt as part of society.

Gregor’s relationship with his father greatly reflects the actual relationship between Kafka and his. After Gregor had died, the maid found his lifeless body laying on the ground and called in the rest of the family to come and look at the scene. Everyone had different reactions to the tragic event however, Gregor’s father’s reaction was the most inhumane out of the three of them. The first thing he said when he saw the body was “...let’s give thanks to God for that” (21). It is after he found his only son dead in his room, he gives thanks to God for the death of his son. His father clearly did not cared about Gregor 's well being and could have lived with himself, whether Gregor was there or not. He remotely cared about him when he was making money for the family. However, after Gregor had become a cockroach, and became a

He became fond of playing a little game where he would climb onto the ceiling, hang from it, then fall onto the floor. Since he had been isolated from his family for so long, he to found something to do keep him busy while he is in his room all day. So, in order to keep him busy, “He was especially fond of hanging from the ceiling...it might happen that he would surprise himself by letting go of the ceiling and landing on the floor with a crash”(12). He felt so isolated from the rest of his family that no one would come and visit him besides Grete (who only came to clean the room). So, he created a little game that he could play by himself, since no one could play with him and he didn’t have work to keep him busy. His little game is one of the few things that actually brought him joy, considering he was going through depression. Kafka also had something like Gregor that brought him joy during his depression. He enjoyed writing, even though his father was against it. Kafka portrays the difficulties Gregor had to go through, because his family abandoned him, in order to show how the isolation affected Kafka personally. Grete had noticed the little game that he invented, so to be courteous she wanted to move the furniture to give him space to walk around freely. She realized that she couldn’t move the furniture on her own so she asked her mother for help. Although Grete had become